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Wrongo buckwheat
http://home.pon.net/hunnicutt/images/F22.jpg
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...wbomber223.xml
So the Air Force have decided to ground the entire fleet until they can figure out what caused this one to crash. Nice safe plan in my opinion.
The F-22 and the F-35 are likely to be the last manned fighter planes ever built by the United States. Thanks to the success of the Predator drones and their unmanned brethren, bean counters are figuring out that its cheaper to build a fleet of robotic or remote controlled aircraft than it is to train fighter pilots and build defense mechanisms for the planes they fly in. After all, if a drone gets shot down they don't need to send a rescue chopper into an already dangerous area to save the pilots, potentially at the cost of more planes and helicopters.
It sucks, but math conquers all I fear.
That doesn't suck. I don't want people dying in planes in a war when they don't have to. Let the robots fight it out.
Flying fighter planes is cool. In the great scheme of things its great, but there goes half of 6 year old's dream jobs for the now.
I'd rather have a choice when Skynet decides to wipe me out thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by stormy
It's no secret that our Air Force's fleet is getting up there in years, and it's going to take a twenty metric shit-tons of cash to keep it adequate in the coming decade. This is further exacerbated by the fact that there has been little innovation in air power during the past fifteen years.
A very significant portion of our budget went towards such research during the Reagan years. This windfall of money was later lambasted by the public.
"Billions of money to research invisible planes? Blah blah blah..."
What people failed to realize was that such spending, however outrageous it might have been, netted some pretty impressive technical results.
As the subsequent three administrations have avoided such practices due to political ramifications, the result is the atrophied Air Force you see today. While the F-22 is technically a "new plane," it's basically a 1990 YF-22 prototype with superficial enhancements. Yep, that's right. A product of Reagan-era spending.
The truth of the matter is that these unfortunate incidents aren't going to magically go away as funding dwindles and the planes continue to age. Sure, it's fun to rag on presidents for "burning money" on "invisible planes." But it's going to be a lot less fun to lose your air superiority to an emerging superpower.
Fo real. Either that or I have to extend my Shoryuken training to 30K feet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Error
The Airforce is the most expensive branch of the military, and people could argue that they do less to do with the war effort than the army or navy. All the money that we shovel to them, it better dish out some pretty damn good technical achievements.Quote:
Originally Posted by squall_vb
I want my next car to be an F-22. Those things are pure baddass.
On the subject of unmanned fighter jets: Is that safe? Without a pilot it would be a fucking disaster if the enemy hacked the plane (however remote the chance may be) after takeoff and took over the flight controls. I'd think there'd have to be some sort of 100% guarantee that the US is flying the plane. With one of our men physically in the plane you have that. With the pilot hundreds of miles away at a desk...who knows?
Skynet = main problem.
Or, Staff Sgt. Bob having a bad afternoon after finding out First Sgt. Tad has been sleeping with his woman.